Wide adoption of energy-efficient technologies

Energy efficiency across the myriad industrial processes and products can be boiled down into a recipe that can enhance a company’s cost advantage over less efficient competitors—especially in a climate of volatile fossil fuel prices.

By taking advantage of four fundamental principles—reducing the energy needed to run fundamental processes, reducing the losses in the systems that distribute energy services within a facility, improving the efficiency of devices like motors and boilers that turn energy into useful services and putting waste energy to use—companies have made great progress in using less energy to produce the same ton of product.

New technologies continue to appear throughout the industrial landscape that can improve efficiency potential even further.

Premium-efficiency motors are normally assumed to cost more because they use more and better copper and iron. Yet analysis of all models on the 2010 U.S. market, in this case for 250 hp (TEFC, NEMA Type B) shows this is untrue despite standards’ having knocked the least efficient models off the market.

Based on Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) technology reports, a number of measures were considered for adoption. This table features a sampling of these measures, with information on each measure’s technical potential, associated energy savings, and cost.

Premium-efficiency motors are normally assumed to cost more because they use more and better copper and iron. Yet analysis of all models on the 2010 U.S. market, in this case for 250 hp (TEFC, NEMA Type B) shows this is untrue despite standards’ having knocked the least efficient models off the market.